The Art Of Giving

Working Out With Famous People

Those who know me know exactly how very much of my life I leave out of this writing. It has never been and will never be a diaristic account of what happens to me. It is more an account of someone who sees a writer like Proust as always writing a diary. Writing the diary, composing the life. The question of whether it is fictional or real is simply an irrelevent question.

Yet unlike Proust I have no desire to piss off my friends, piss off acquaintances and coaches and strangers, or have real life stalkers running around. And so I leave out names and locations of people I write about routinely. I leave out as much personal detail as possible to avoid getting mail and visits from strangers (which is silly if you know how to look stuff up, but it's something). I leave out details of my loves (what I have to say about that here revolves only around how it affects the rest of my life; if I want to explore my feelings I talk to friends, therapist, and my loves). And, of course, I leave out everything that happens with those friends of mine who are known and recognized wherever we go, to preserve what little privacy they have left in their lives.

Yesterday I worked out with a new friend of mine, someone who is well known to those who look on the interweb for pictures of muscular, nude, hairy men. He was visiting NYC and out of the blue asked me if I wanted to work out with him and his boyfriend. I accepted (duh, he's hot!), and there we were, at my gym, pushing heavy weights. He's approximately 1.45 times my weight, and about six inches taller. And stacked. And a serious weightlifter, so he could actually pull alot of weight. My own powerlifting workouts have gone to zero, so he was easily lifting double what I could handle. Which made the sight of him deadlifting four plates for eight reps something to behold (I could only get two reps out of three plates, nine reps out of two plates). He gave me lots of tips to improve my weightlifting form on a few exercises that don't seem to have as much effect as I would like. He spotted me when I needed it, and I him. He was flirting too, but in that subtle way that is about getting each other pre-aroused because you're with someone who shares your interests in bodily growth.

At the gym, he had admirers. Some who would just talk and talk, and fail to introduce themselves to me and his BF. He was gracious to all, but like many I have observed in this situation, would freely and politely chat about absolutely nothing to the strangers, and then turn and have thoughtful and focused conversation with his friends. I found the admiration annoying after a time; first because of the strange habit of not acknowledging anyone else except my well-known friend (both his BF and I never got a hello even though we were right next to him), second because of the lack of acknowledgement that we were engaged in the activity of lifting weights (meaning we're on a strict rest period, yo). Third, of course, is because of simple jealousy; I want him to myself! Yet my friend was incredibly patient. Or to me it was patience. For him it appeared as if he was simply enjoying the attention, and was able to be friendly with everyone even if they were interrupting us. For me, there is a limit. Everyone gets their turn, I give everyone that, but I also reach a point where I feel like unless I really want to develop a friendship with the person, I am done chatting about the weather and how much their knee hurts and want to get on with what I was up to. I'm not nice like that.

Fortunately the gym was very slow, and we kept our timetable and didn't have to blab too much. I kept kidding him about the attention, about how much he liked it. He was sheepish about it for a moment, and then just said "hell yeah I like it".

We had dinner, then went to a nearby bar for drinks. At the bar no one approched us. I chose it because it wasn't too loungey, and was also a crowd that had the least chance of recognizing him, so we would be free to just chill in a corner. And that's what happened. The three of us had a nice long chat, cementing my impression from the gym that they're both good eggs. It was as I left their warm presence that I realized that what is missing from my self is that deeply patient reserve of politeness toward those who wish to chat me up for a long time, regardless of what I am up to.